


iron hearts all turn to rust

by helenabarbara



Series: oh sweethearts, you belong to me [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: ADHD, Angst, Bad Fic, Disability, Fluff, M/M, Medication, POV Zayn, also kinda - Freeform, hii im here too, in the background like, literally no, poor kitchen, the kitchen is on fire like twice, zarriall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:01:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3365273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenabarbara/pseuds/helenabarbara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>polyamory |  ˌpɒliˈam(ə)ri |<br/>noun [ mass noun ]<br/>the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with consent of all the people involved.</p><p>DERIVATIVES<br/>polyamorist | ˌpɒliˈam(ə)rist | noun ,<br/>polyamorous | ˌpɒliˈam(ə)rəs | adjective</p><p>  <i>au. zayn might have a little crush. on a married couple.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	iron hearts all turn to rust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jinxfabray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxfabray/gifts).



> for the prompt:
> 
> _niall and harry are newlyweds who have absolutely no idea how to be adults. zayn is their more mature neighbor who does their best to help them. he may eventually end up falling in love with both of them. they might possibly end up loving him back._
> 
> i am fairly happy with this. the first scene doesn't really have to do anything with the rest of the story, but it was the first thing that i thought of and it gave me the space to get the background straight. (or gay, lol)
> 
> it's a super short, but i hope you like it anyhow.
> 
> \--
> 
> title from _liar liar_ by avicii. great song.

_Follow you to dust /_  
_Leavin' footprints on the clouds as we're walkin' home /_  
_Iron hearts all turn to rust_

 

The door slammed open and Zayn looked up from the novel he was reading to find Louis standing in the doorway, dishevelled, with a big grin on his face. Liam was leaning against the wall behind him. Zayn sighed and gave Liam a pointed look. Seemed Louis was at it again.

“Zayn, we have neighbours!” Louis exclaimed. “And they’re gay!”

“You can’t just talk about people like that, Louis, it’s rude,” Liam spoke up, getting an exaggerated huff from his boyfriend. Louis was ticking a complicated rhythm on his thigh and shook his head.

“Well, Liam, it’s not like they can hear me now, can’t they?” Louis retorted, and with that he left Zayn’s room in a rush, probably to play on the PlayStation or something. Zayn turned to Liam with raised eyebrows, met with a frown. Louis was childish. He was a little wild at times, sure, but this was different.

“Has he taken his pills?” He asked softly, because the look of concern was evident on his face. Liam shook his head no and Zayn had his explanation for Louis’s behaviour.

“He simply refuses to take them and I can’t exactly force him to either, he’s an adult.” He nodded and hummed. He could see _why_ Louis didn’t want to take his medication; he used to tell Zayn all about it during secondary school. However, he was almost addicted to them when they went to university together. Zayn often had to pry the strips out of his hands to prevent him from taking more than his prescriptive doses allowed. Those pills were either Louis’s friends or foes and nowadays, they were like poison for his mind – or so he said.

“It will catch up with him soon enough, Liam. Don’t beat yourself up about this, you know all about his episodes.” They’d been in a relationship as long as Zayn could remember. Alright, that wasn’t entirely true, but when Liam was the new kid at their school Louis immediately dragged him in his protective circle. This only existed of Zayn before that happened. The three of them became best friends almost instantly and Zayn as hell was not surprised when he saw them kiss in a corner one day. Their tenth anniversary was coming up, actually. Secretly, Zayn hoped one of them would propose. But then, he’s been hoping that since they were together for five years. After a hard breakup with his last boyfriend, he had invested everything in keeping their relationship going.

“I just- It’s not like I don’t love him when he’s like this, but it seems like he’s never really come to terms with his diagnosis! I’ve seen him cry, Zayn, _sobbing_ over the fact that he couldn’t control himself. You know all about it. And you know something else? He didn’t even tell me until he forgot to take his pills one day and was physically hurting himself to make it stop. He only told me because I kept asking about the scratch marks. It was the day of our seventh anniversary; he kept it secret for _seven_ _years_ , Zayn!” Liam wrung his hands. It pained Zayn to see him so distressed, but he also knew how hurtful the subject was. There were so many times when he just wanted to tell Liam everything about Louis, about his disorder and his tics, absolutely everything. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to his best friend. Louis had fewer episodes at the time, which, when Zayn thought about it, was because of Liam. In the present, he had about three of them per year. They didn’t last very long, at some point it would all catch up to him and he’d be back to taking the pills in no time. The longest lasted almost six months, but that was before they even knew Liam existed. Now, it only took around three to five weeks for Louis to get caught up in all of it.

He pulled Liam in for a hug and tried to reassure him, “it will pass, I’m sure of it.”

~*~

When Zayn entered the kitchen a week later to get himself breakfast, there was a crumpled strip missing a few pills lying on the bar. He smiled and took a sip of his coffee, spitting it out immediately when the hot beverage burned the roof of his mouth.

~*~

The last thing Zayn was expecting to wake up to was knocking, and not because he normally slept through any noise that’s made. Although that happened quite a lot. Something you learn to do while living in the same house as Louis Tomlinson, Zayn always joked. He pulled down his shirt that had ridden up during his sleep and padded into the small hallway. He opened the door with a gruff “yes?” only to be met with a chest. He tilted his head upwards to look at the person’s face, which was tinted bright red. He also smelled a little smoky. Weird.

“Yeah, uhm, hi,” the guy said slowly in a low voice. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

Zayn waved away his concern. He had to get up anyway. “You did, but it’s okay. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, well, I- we, uhm, were wondering if you possess a fire-extinguisher, by any chance.” When Zayn asked him why, he was told by the now awfully flustered man, that they had accidentally set their kitchen on fire. _Accidentally_. He told him to wait for a second and walked back into the apartment to their own kitchen, where they kept the extinguisher. He handed the thing to the guy. He was kind of hot. Like fire.

“You’re not even surprised our kitchen is on fire, or something?” the guy said, a little shocked by Zayn’s reaction, it seemed.

“Nah, it reminds me of the story one of my flatmates tells me when I ask them what’s for dinner,” he explained, and added, “there is a reason why we have a fire-extinguisher.” The man grinned and offered his hand.

“’M Harry, just moved in next door.”

“Zayn’s the name, nice to meet you. You’re one of our gay neighbours then.” Harry laughed, making Zayn smile a little. “The same housemate with the dinner story called you that.”

“He sounds charming.”

Zayn snorted loudly. “I believe you both have boyfriends,” he joked. Harry smiled widely at him.

“Husband, we just got married.” It was pretty adorable how his whole face just lighted up when he said those four words.

“You should probably go back to your husband and that burning kitchen of yours, then.” The realisation that his husband was in their flat, with the kitchen that’s on fire, suddenly seemed to dawn on Harry. He looked towards an open door to the left, thanked Zayn for letting him use his extinguisher and leaped into the hall. Zayn amusedly shook his head and closed the front door. Gay neighbours indeed, but quite strange as well.

~*~

A few days later Zayn, Liam and Louis were invited by Harry to finally meet his husband. The newlyweds had apparently put the fire-extinguisher to good use, because Harry handed it back to Zayn while profusely thanking him – again. Niall turned to be Harry’s perfect other half, full of laughter lines and puns. Though he laughed the hardest at all of them. He almost choked when Harry asked Zayn whether it was Louis or Liam that had called them the ‘gay neighbours’, while Louis just huffed at Zayn. Zayn knew he would get over it sooner or later.

“So Zayn, no one’s got your interest then? Or have these birds here ruined love for you?” Niall said, laughing and pointing at Liam and Louis. Zayn grinned half-heartedly at him and shook his head.

“Nah, nobody has caught my eye really,” he said, not really wanting to elaborate. “How is your kitchen doing, by the way?” _Great change of subject, there, Zayn._

~*~

Harry and Niall were awful adults. Horrible ones.

Zayn had eventually set up a cooking scheme, consisting of the days of the week he had time to cook for them and the days he didn’t, so they knew when to order take-out. He also taught Niall how to do laundry, as both of them began to wear shirts with multiple stains on it. When he finally asked about it, it turned out they had not even bought a single bottle of detergent. Zayn had laughed so hard he almost choked when the two of them explained how they did their washing. By just putting it in the washing machine and turning the thing on. No wonder those stains didn’t wash out.

After Liam told him Harry had come by asking for their extinguisher again, Zayn had set up that cooking scheme. A kitchen can only take so much hotness. And not the kind radiating from its users. One evening Zayn was in their kitchen making dinner, only to find Niall barging in shirtless looking for something to eat. A sight made by god. Luckily he never blushed; otherwise Zayn had been bright red like the tomato he was supposed to be cutting.

~*~

It had been a dragging three months and Zayn was devastated.

 _How could a couple look so good together?_ He should google that. Google held all the answers. Zayn had been staring at Harry and his husband, Niall, for the last ten minutes. Louis would have a right laugh seeing him like this, because ‘Zayn the man that doesn’t fall in love’ was making googly eyes at the married couple next door. He kind of hated himself for it – Zayn actually swore to never fall in love ever again after his last boyfriend treated him badly, nor did he plan to fall in love with two people or a married couple for fucks sake. Who does that? No one, that’s who.

He wandered down the road back home, scuffing his worn shoes on the pavement. Once safely in his own room, Zayn sighed forlornly and grabbed his laptop. He opened Google and typed in _what does it mean to be in love with two people at the same time?_

Was it too hasty to say _love_? Zayn had been mulling over his crush on the two ever since Harry introduced him to his lovely husband. The fact that they were horrible adults wasn’t helping, because that meant they kept asking Zayn for help – giving him only more butterflies to get rid of. He couldn’t hate them for it, though.

Turned out, it actually existed. Polyamory was it called. Just the word itself gave him a little spark of hope, because that meant there were other people experiencing the same thing as him. Zayn grinned, feeling a lot happier.

He wasn’t alone.

~*~

This was not what he expected to happen today, or _ever_. Zayn slammed the door of his room shut and fell face-down on his bed. Well, it wasn’t exactly his fault, now was it? Harry wasn’t supposed to kiss him, but who was he not to kiss him back? He’s been having dreams about it for the last, who knows, six months. He just hoped it didn’t ruin Harry’s marriage. They fitted so well together.

Zayn opened his laptop that was still lying on his bed and clicked on the _Polyamory_ forum.

 

 

> _New forum post –_ Zayn(polyzayn_)  
>  [7:01:08 PM] Subject: HELP
> 
> one of the married blokes i’ve been pining after just kissed me, what should i do?

He closed it again and put and hand over his eyes. Maybe if he fell asleep now, he’d wake up later finding it had all been just another dream.

He woke up at about five in the morning to a text from Niall asking whether he was okay, which meant Harry hadn’t told him _yet_ , and two new reactions on his forum post. One said _go for it._ and theother _you should talk to them about it._ And yeah, maybe he should.

~*~

“Zayn, are you okay?” Liam asked worriedly. “Do you want us to stay home with you?” Oh, right. Liam and Louis were going on a trip to celebrate their anniversary.

Zayn shook his head and mumbled, “no, I’m fine. Go on your trip and have lots of sex, guys.” A loud bark of laughter was heard from the bathroom, where Louis was packing up his last stuff.

“Oh, we will,” he said, coming out to the kitchen and winking at Liam, who blushed a little. Ever since their little scuffle about Louis’s pills it seemed like they were closer, and more _sexually_ active, than ever. They were happier, both of them smiling more and Louis was calmer than Zayn had ever seen him. “What are you doing today, Zayn?”

“I promised Harry and Niall that I’d explain how to clean the bathroom today,” Zayn said while sticking out his tongue in disgust, a gesture Liam and Louis both copied. “Hopefully they can do it on their own next time,” he laughed.

When the lovebirds were on their way to the airport and Zayn had gotten ready, he went over to Harry and Niall’s. He’d show them how to clean the toilet, shower, etcetera and then they would talk. Great plan, right? Nothing that could go wrong. Except when he knocked on the door, he was met with a flushed Niall.

“What’s going on?” Zayn asked wearily. The bloke laughed nervously.

“We, uh, there is a fox, yes, in our bathroom.”

“A fox.”

“Yeah.” Zayn gave him a dumbfounded look.

“How the fuck did that happen?”

“I, I really don’t know,” Niall stammered. “It’s just _there_.” Zayn snorted, he did that a lot around those two, and gestured for Niall to show him the fox. There actually was a fox. And Harry was trying to catch it with fishing net. The scene was hilarious, although that fox really needed to get back where it came from. Wherever that thing came from anyway. Zayn grabbed the net from Harry’s hands and told him to retrieve a travel basket for cats from Miss Trevor next door. He then threw the net aside and commanded Niall to stand in the corner of the room. When Harry came back, with said basket, Zayn had gotten some raw meat from the kitchen, which he put in the back of the basket. Lastly, he told Niall to force the fox in the direction of the basket. It worked.

When the animal was finally caught and was consuming the meat, Harry huffed out a breath and asked, “have you done this before, or what?”

“We had a stray cat in the store room a few years ago, got it out the same way,” Zayn said simply while washing his hands in the sink. “We should definitely clean this bathroom now, shouldn’t we?”

After they were finished and all cleaned up, Niall especially as he sloshed dirty water all over himself, it was time for the next item on Zayn’s list; _the talk_.

“Guys, I need to talk to you about something,” he said, heart already beating fast. It couldn’t be that bad, right? Harry kissed him, that’s one thing. What if Niall got mad at them, though? The couple sat down on the couch across from him, both wearing a questioning expression on their face. “I need to know why Harry kissed me the other day,” Zayn blurted out. Well, that’s that, then.

Niall _snickered_. “You just couldn’t wait, couldn’t you? Impatient bastard,” he said, still snickering and bumping Harry’s shoulder with his own. Zayn’s mouth had fallen open and he was staring at them.

“Wait for what?!” he asked, dumbfounded. Harry gave Niall a shove.

“I think it’s best to just tell him.” His husband nodded and leaned closer towards Zayn.

“So, Zayn, have you ever heard of polyamory?”

~*~

The next two years flew by. Zayn moved out of the apartment he shared with Liam and Louis, and simply moved all of his stuff next door. He, Harry and Niall had decided on a three way relationship and had been together ever since their little talk two years ago. Zayn was quite sure this was the happiest time of his life, especially when Louis and Liam announced they were getting married. The couple had had a hard time during Louis’s most recent episode, but they talked through it this time. Things had gotten even better after that. It was like they were finally ready for the next step – and they took it.

Also, Zayn was getting old. Turning thirty, to be exact. And his lovely boyfriends were sitting on their bed right now, both with big smiles on their faces. All of sudden they started singing _Happy Birthday_ and Zayn groaned. He absolutely hated that song.

“Really? I’m thirty now, guys, not a child anymore,” he said and raised an eyebrow when Niall shook his head and jumped up and down.

“Always a child at heart!” He recited with a smile and Zayn sighed deeply. Louis always said that, it was even in his bio on Instagram and Twitter. Followed by the ‘Liam is the gay to my rainbow’ of course. That guy was one of a kind. The best of his kind, too.

“Well, I still love you, Zayn. Child or not,” Harry piped up sweetly. He kissed him on his stubbly cheek. “Happy birthday, old man.” Niall nodded excitedly.

“We’ve got a whole day planned for you,” he exclaimed and leaned closer to Zayn. “It involves cake,” he faux-whispered. Harry slapped him.

“It’s a pre-anniversary and birthday gift in one,” Harry spoke, but he was smiling, too. He gave Niall a meaningful look. Those two were always full of surprises.

“I cannot believe it has almost been two years already,” Zayn sighed dreamily.

Niall grinned. “Me neither, we should set the kitchen on fire to celebrate.” He waggled his eyebrows dirtily, “get your extinguisher ready, Zayniepoo.”

Harry shoved him off the bed, laughing. “Way to ruin the moment, you dork!”

~*~

 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it. x


End file.
